Chemical Guesswork in West Virginia

On Thursday, operators at a chemical storage facility located near the banks of West Virginia’s Elk River discovered a leak. Specifically they discovered that a special “detergent” used for washing coal had overflowed its holding area and washed right into the nearby river. By today, more than 200,000 people in the state had been told that their tap water could no longer be guaranteed safe.

The owner of the storage facility, Freedom Industries, said that it had not yet determined how much of the compound had seeped into the river. And state regulators and water experts said, equally frankly, that they weren’t really sure what to expect from the spill. “This is the first I’ve heard of this chemical,” the director of the West Virginia Water Institute told Salon.

Really, I thought? Well, how exotic could it be? I got my first sense of that in a conversation with a government toxicologist, who said: “Interestingly, and unusually, there is very little information on the compound spilled in West Virginia.” Really, I thought? I noticed that a number of newspapers and other publications are linking to ToxNet (the terrific database from the National Library of Medicine). But when I clicked on the link, it led me to the compound methylcyclohexanol.

Call me a geek — certainly, my children frequently do — but that didn’t precisely match the given formula of the spilled compound: 4-methylcyclohexane methanol. Close though, right? I tagged another toxicologist. “Similar,” he agreed. “But not exactly the same thing.” He had heard, in fact, that the National Library of Medicine, which maintains ToxNet, was having difficulty locating detailed information. Okay then. I went to one of my favorite databases, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, and tried a search there. But all I found was a reference to a six-year-old analysis of pollution from a Savannah, Georgia paper plant in which methylcyclohexane had been one of the toxic byproducts.

Call me frustrated. Once upon a time, you would have found me kicking a chair. Okay, I still kick chairs. But after doing so, I took the more productive step of raising the issue on Twitter:

@deborahblum And the lack of detailed tox information about the W. Virginia compound should remind us that we REALLY need to require more safety data.

On Twitter a host of smart chemists and toxicologists steered me in some even more productive directions. I learned that Wikipedia suddenly had an entry on my exact compound: 4-methylcyclohexane methanol. Yes, it’s a short entry without any toxicology to it but it will tell you that this is an oily liquid with the chemical formula C8H14O2 and that it has a slightly minty (I have also heard licorice-like) odor. And that it’s been patented as an air freshener, which is at this moment a slightly daunting idea.

Further, a very kind former toxicologist from Michigan pointed out to me that ToxNet does also have an entry for methylcyclohexane which, he noted, was central to the mystery compound. If you read that entry you’ll find that it suggests moderate though not terrifying animal toxicity. In people, it causes minor effects, from drowsiness to skin irritation to nausea, but again nothing terrifying. And that the entry refers to a compound primarily used as a solvent in shoe factories. So yes, close, yes, reassuring, but no not exactly the same as a coal-washing agent.

At this point, another source – yes, I was making a complete pest of myself — sent me a copy of a 2011 Material Safety Data Sheet. “Caution,” it said. “Product can cause skin and eye irritation. Vapors, especially upon heating, can cause irritation to the eyes and respiratory tract.” The safety data sheet was strong on not inhaling the compound – which could cause headaches, breathing difficulty and nausea – and on wearing protective gear in case of an accident.

But here was what caught my attention:

Exposure guidelines: None established for products or components

Decomposition: Unavailable

Ecological information: There is no data available for the product

And that I think is the most important message in this story. That we don’t really know. That we haven’t done our homework well on enough of these industrial compounds because we haven’t been willing to invest in the research or provide enough financial support to the agencies who could do the work. Our Toxic Substances Control Act is more than 35 years old and we (by which I mean Congress) haven’t conjured up the backbone to update and strengthen it as of this date.

It might be, probably is, that this “never heard of it before” compound flooding into drinking water is not that harmful. But it’s because we don’t know, because we can’t be sure, that we have little choice but to turn off the taps. Almost-the-same compounds can provide context and even some comfort. And chemical guess work can provide almost answers. But neither of those options can provide the reassurance — or the answers — that we deserve.

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